This Little Piggy Went To Market

"It won't be long, he says, before people can hedge bets on their own job security. "For instance if you were a British Airways employee, and you thought you might lose your job, you would be able to trade on the possibility of losing your job. You hedge your job prospects, not in the traditional way by trading shares in the company, but by trading on how many jobs you think will be lost.'"

More on that story about predicting terrorist events via a specialised tip-off "stock market". My initial gut reaction, like most, was one of revulsion. However, intellectually this is a fascinating concept that raises some very interesting questions about how we acquire and assess information.

Much though I might dislike the underlying implication that everything can ultimately be reduced to the rules of the free market economy, I think this is a trend worth watching. Add it into the mix along with artifical intelligence, fuzzy logic and the whole "Google is watching you" thing and you can start to see the haziest of pictures of how our society might be operating in a decade or so.

Posted by Hg on Friday 01 August 2003 at 14:33.
Received 3 comments so far.

Anybody want to join me on my ten-year mission to build a spacecraft and colonise a new planet?

Comment by Pete on Friday 01 August 2003 at 15:41.

Hydragenic.com is currently taking bets as to the likely success of Pete's mission...

Comment by Stuart on Friday 01 August 2003 at 15:58.

But once there, I envisage a Lord of the Flies scenario. Still, for a second there the thought was lovely.

Comment by Caroline on Saturday 02 August 2003 at 09:53.

http://www.hydragenic.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hydragen/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1011

The previous post was ... - ..- .--. .. -.. / - .-- .- -.

The next post is Patti Smith - Banter.

All original material on this site is © Hydragenic, 2002-2008. Extracts of other people's work are used for the purpose of criticism, review or news reporting, in line with the "fair dealing" (or "fair use") principle.